How to Fix the XAMPP Error "MySQL Shutdown Unexpectedly"

Change Your MySQL Port One of the most common causes of the XAMPP error “MySQL shutdown unexpectedly” is another software using the port assigned to MySQL. By default, it tends to be 3306. To be certain, you can select the Netstat module from XAMPP’s control panel, right above the Shell tool Netstat is a command line tool that can show you active connections on your network, including which ports they’re using. Once you initialize Netstat, you’ll be able to see what port each tool in your stack is using, including MySQL If a conflict with that port caused the shutdown, restoring a backup or running MySQL with administrator privileges won’t make a difference. The only way to solve this issue is to change the port that MySQL uses. Thanks to Netstat, you can see what that port is and which other ones are in use. To do so, go ahead and stop the service, using the same process we showed you in the last section. Next, click on the Config button next to MySQL on XAMPP’s main menu, and then select the my.ini option: The my.ini file contains the MySQL configuration settings. After you click on it, XAMPP will open the file using your default text editor. Once you’re in, look for the line that reads Port, which specifies the port number that MySQL uses. Here, you can change that port number to another option that you know other programs aren’t using. In most cases, we recommend using 3307, which should be available. Save your changes and close the my.ini file. You can then use the XAMPP control panel to restart MySQL. Hopefully, your database is now working as it should. If for some reason, XAMPP can’t connect to your database using the new port that you set, it will let you know through the control panel’s log. In that case, you might try using a different port instead.